The subject matter of U.S. patent applications: application Ser. No. 09/785,047, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING ALTERNATIVE SYMPTOMSxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,037, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING SYNERGIESxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,045, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING ENCODING PATIENT DATAxe2x80x9d; application Ser. No. 09/785,046, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING DISEASE TIMELINExe2x80x9d; and application Ser. No. 09/785,044, filed Feb. 14, 2001 and entitled xe2x80x9cAUTOMATED DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM AND METHOD INCLUDING REUSE OF DIAGNOSTIC OBJECTSxe2x80x9d are related to this application.
1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to computerized medical diagnostic systems. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a computerized system for time-based diagnosis of a patient""s medical complaint by use of dynamic data structures.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Health care costs currently represent a significant portion of the United States Gross National Product and are generally rising faster than any other component of the Consumer Price Index. Moreover, usually because of an inability to pay for medical services, many people are deprived of access to even the most basic medical care and information.
Many people delay in obtaining, or are prevented from seeking, medical attention because of cost, time constraints, or inconvenience. If the public had universal, unrestricted, and easy access to medical information, many diseases could be prevented. Likewise, the early detection and treatment of numerous diseases could keep many patients from reaching the advanced stages of illness, the treatment of which is a significant part of the financial burden attributed to our nation""s health care system. It is clear that the United States is facing health-related issues of enormous proportions and that present solutions are not robust.
Previous attempts at tackling the healthcare problem have involved various forms of automation. Some of these attempts have been in the form of a dial-in library of answers to medical questions. Other attempts have targeted providing doctors with computerized aids for use during a patient examination. These methods involve static procedures or algorithms. What is desired is an automated way of providing to a patient medical advice and diagnosis that is quick, efficient and accurate. Such a medical advice system should be modular to allow expansion for new types of medical problems or methods of detection.
Structure-based processing is a method of diagnosing diseases that works by arranging diseases, symptoms, and questions into a set of related disease, symptom, and question structures, such as objects or lists, in such a way that the structures can be processed to generate a dialogue with a patient. Each question to the patient generates one of a set of defined responses, and each response generates one of a set of defined questions. This establishes a dialogue that elicits symptoms from the patient. The symptoms are processed and weighted to rule diseases in or out. The set of ruled-in diseases establishes the diagnosis. A structure-based processing system organizes medical knowledge into formal structures and then executes those structures on a structure engine, such as a list-based engine, to automatically select the next question. The responses to the questions lead to more questions and ultimately to a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a method of automated medical diagnosis of a patient, the method comprising: providing a first medical symptom element, the first medical symptom element having an actual symptom weight for a first disease and an alternative symptom weight for a second disease; providing a second medical symptom element, the second medical symptom element having an actual symptom weight for the second disease; applying the actual weight for the first medical symptom element to a first diagnostic score and the alternative weight to a second diagnostic score, wherein the first diagnostic score is associated with the first disease and the second diagnostic score is associated with the second disease; and continuing diagnostic scoring by applying actual symptom weights for the second disease to the second diagnostic score.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized diagnostic method of a patient, the method comprising: a) providing to a computer a list of diseases, each disease associated with a list of symptoms; b) selecting a one of the symptoms to be a focus symptom based on a predetermined criteria; c) evaluating the focus symptom to establish the symptom, the established symptom contributing a weight to the diseases having the established symptom; d) selecting a one of the symptoms to be a focus symptom from the list of symptoms associated with a selected one of the diseases; e) evaluating the focus symptom to establish the symptom, the established symptom contributing a weight to at least the selected disease having the established symptom; and f) selectively repeating b) and c) or d) and e) until the accumulated weights for a disease reach or pass a threshold so as to declare a diagnosis.
An additional aspect of the invention includes a computerized method for diagnosing the medical problem of a patient, the method comprising a) providing to a computer a list of diseases, each disease being associated with a list of symptoms; b) selecting, in a first mode, a subset of diseases having shared symptoms from the list of diseases; c) evaluating at least one of the shared symptoms; d) switching from the first mode to a second mode based on the evaluating of the shared symptoms, wherein a particular disease is selected; e) selecting, in the second mode, symptoms associated with the particular disease; f) evaluating at least one of the selected symptoms of the particular disease; and g) diagnosing the medical problem of a patient based on the evaluating of the shared symptoms and the selected symptoms.
An additional aspect of the invention comprises a method of automated diagnosis including a computer, comprising asking a patient questions, receiving answers from the patient, sing the answers to diagnose a disease by selecting a subset of possible diseases based on a chief complaint, determining a first significant symptom of the patient, and using the answers to diagnose a disease by asking questions associated with the symptoms of a selected disease wherein the selected disease includes the first significant symptom.